saviour
by paper-rose16
Summary: Not looking for help felt like backing down, like giving up, like saying, 'Oh, I wanted to live, sure I did, but I just couldn't bother to try.' She was not the type of person to just not bother to try.


**A/N:** This story is one part in a series of short stories chronicling the Flight 29 Down cast after they return home. So far, you can also find Taylor's, Melissa's and Daley's stories at my account page. This is Jory's POV. Enjoy and don't forget to review!!

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**Saviour**

People tended to overlook Jory. It wasn't anything intentional, and it certainly wasn't anything unexpected – she was just the type of person, with the slightly overweight figure and the Plain-Jane features, which eyes skimmed over without a second glance and that always blended into the crowd, just one more face in a whole sea of them.

Oh, sometimes she wished that people would notice her. She was by no means popular, and certainly no boys paid her any more interest than they would to the hot dog stand on the street corner – less probably. She was jealous of girls like Taylor and Abby, who got all of the attention and all of the awards, seemingly without even trying or caring. And sometimes, she would just stare and stare at herself in the mirror for countless, countless hours until she could almost believe that she had those pretty sky blue eyes and long, curly hair that she'd always dreamed about because then she'd be something to look at.

Despite all of that, though, life was still good. She had her few close friends, parents who loved her, and teachers who more often than not gave her above exceptional grades on her schoolwork.

But, more than anything, in the deepest and most secret hollows of her heart, she still used to want to be like them, and not like who she was.

_Used to_, being the key words.

* * *

On the island, she positively refused to just sit on the beach and wait for rescue to come to them ... _if_ it came. That felt like backing down, like giving up, like saying, _Oh, I wanted to live, sure I did, but I just couldn't bother to try_. She was not the type of person to just not bother to try.

When the offer came to explore the island in the hope of life, some long forgotten tribe of natives perhaps, or better yet, a paradise vacation resort, she jumped at the chance. And for a while, life was still relatively good.

Jory learned what it felt like to be wanted, needed, for once. People relied on her. She was more than just a monotonous brick in the wall.

There, in the middle of nowhere, she and Ian relied on each other when they couldn't rely on the only adult they had with them. If she had a bad dream, Ian was there to hold her hand and talk through it; when Captain Russell went raving and rambling mad after his sickness, he could save the man from himself when she failed; when Ian broke his leg and couldn't stand or walk, much less help out around camp, she watched over him. He was her best friend and her hero in that godforsaken place.

But more than that, he treated her like she was a real person with value, with a face. He _noticed_ her.

* * *

There is a media swarm awaiting them when they touch down home. Their families are lined in one crooked, narrow row, tears in their eyes and hugs in abundance. Cameras flash and reporters shout questions through the crowd. And the ten of them are in the center of it all, lost with people who should be so familiar.

For Jory, the attention only lasts a few weeks, and then she begins the slow transition back into anonymity, but not before her entire life is food for critics and she has nearly forgotten what privacy felt like. While the others are still getting hounded with sympathy from nosy do-gooders, she has faded into the background; remembered, but like a supporting character in a story: not important enough to be bothered with. She sees Ian regularly (they are still close, although in a way they aren't, because it feels wrong now without the gulls and the sand and the starvation as a constant backdrop); the others sometimes wave hello in the hallway; but she is finally out of the spotlight and she's only starting to realize how great of a blessing that can be.

Sometimes she wants to scream though, to rage at them all, to say: _Don't forget about me! I was there! I survived that place just as much as they did! I was there too!_

But there are more times than that where she is glad. She doesn't think she wants people to notice her anymore. Invisibility was a safety blanket that she thought she had outgrown, only to realize too late how well-loved of a thing it was and that she would miss it when it was gone. So, Jory puts on a false smile and blends into the sea of this superpower: sometimes angry and thrashing, and sometimes cool and soothing, but always there, waiting, because it knows that in one way or another it will always be needed, and always wanted.

**the end.**


End file.
